Even though the era of sail ships is in general over, sailing is still a popular hobby in the warm temperature seasons. Furthermore, the training of sailors includes journeys on schooling ships. Furthermore, sailboats, especially in East Asia, still provide inexpensive transportation of goods. Over the centuries, the technology for producing sailcloth has been improved constantly in order to take into account the growing demands with regard to stability against tensile forces and pressure as well as moisture, aging resistance, impermeability to wind, rolling behavior, and weight reduction per square meter.
Energy is required on a sailboat for different purposes. In particular, without wind the best sail cannot do anything against the practically stationary bobbing on the sea. Also for this very reason, sailboats have in general an auxiliary engine with which they can approach the mooring in a harbor and can also maneuver within the harbor independently of the wind conditions. Such an auxiliary motor is usually actuated by a generator which for energy production requires gasoline or diesel fuel. This results in noise emission as well as pollutant emission and increased operating cost.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a measure to reduce the operating cost as well as to lower the noise emission and pollutant emission at least when people are in the surroundings of the sailboat.